In C and C++, the * is used both to declare and dereferencepointers. It is orthogonal, so ** declares or dereferences a pointer to a pointer. Exponentiation in C and C++ is accomplished with the pow() function in the C math library. For C, use #include <math.h> and for C++, use #include <cmath>.

Thanks to OldMiner and ariels for pointing out that ** as exponentiation didn't first appear in perl and recommending that I show how C and C++ do exponentiation.Thanks to vruba for telling me ** is also used in Python and Ruby.

1 - If you know of another language that uses ** as exponentiation, /msg me, and I'll add it.